


In Ruins

by midinvaerne



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Asshole Sauron, Blood and Gore, Drabble, Gen, One Shot, Torture, Violence, War of the Elves and Sauron
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-09
Updated: 2015-12-09
Packaged: 2018-05-05 20:33:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5389313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/midinvaerne/pseuds/midinvaerne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Another, but this time longer one-shot/drabble prompted by Tumblr; an account of Celebrimbor's time as a captive of Sauron during the time the corrupt Maia tries to wrench the secrets about the remaining rings out of him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Ruins

**Author's Note:**

> PoV: Celebrimbor  
> Person: 3rd  
> Word count: 3241

Beautiful things had been laid to waste. Many good men had died, and even more had been chased from their homes. White marble was brought to ruin and scattered across singed grass, the clear waters of numerous rivers were defiled and now a murky brown under a cruel, cruel rule. Not even the lands could hold against the corruption that came with the Abhorred, the one he had previously thought to be a great friend of his, the one he had trusted so and confined in. The Giver of Gifts, he had called himself. Bitter were those gifts, and ill-begotten. Oh, how he regretted every word he had ever said to him. Deceived…

He should have turned him away from his door as soon as the wretch appeared. He should have listened to Artanis when she voiced her distrust. But he did not, he did not. He was too proud.

And still he was so, still he had a glimmer of fire burning within him. He swallowed the dried blood on the inside of his mouth, keeping his eyes closed and mind off any and all dark paths, as far as he just could. Oh, he definitely was proud. He was Fëanor’s blood, he had the self-same flame of the soul. He would not be giving a single word of the Rings any soon. Not now. Not near. Never. Not to Sauron.

The iron wore against his skin, rugging lines of bleeding red at what had once been nigh uncorrupted porcelain, with its great weight pinning him to stone. How many hours had he spent alone in a ruined forge, how many had it just been? He had lost track of time by now.

 

There was a scratching sound at the distant doors, or what had been left of their previously beautifully wrought surface. Vines and leaves had been despoiled into a dirty and broken mess… But would he worry about something as small as a door when he could already recognize the sharp voice that shouted orders behind the doors? Would he concern himself with things as insignificant as a damned door when he already knew that Sauron was behind it?

No.

He grit his teeth, straightening his back despite the strain of the chains on his body. He would not be found slumped, he would not be found cowering. What his tormentor would discover would be an Elda as unbroken and proud as he had ever been. He would say nothing!

In spite of the approaching malice and fire, he held his head high, and looked Gorthaur in the eye. They were swirling, glowing cracks of fire within a face he would never again consider fair. though once he had considered the golden shimmer the Maia’s eyes burned with beautiful, and he had been enraptured by the majesty of his visitor. There was no majesty in Annatar - no, Sauron - now. Only cruelty, and a twisted malice that was ugly at the very best.

The claws slipped under his jaw, forcing his head upwards, but his gaze remained unbroken despite the sharp touch and cold metal.

“Will you talk? Will you talk now?” the voice of the corrupt Maia simmered, poisonous words slipping off the serpent’s double-edged tongue. Celebrimbor defied him with his silence, clenching his teeth as he felt the clouds of power, seeped through and through with darkness and hatred, pooling and wrapping all around the smithy like a suffocating mist. The claws bore deeper into his skin, almost becoming painful. Yet, he retained his silence.

 

Sauron withdrew his hand in a flash, fiery eyes lighting up with flickering embers of anger.

The gauntleted hand wrapped around the handle of a pair of tongs, lying among the scattered and ruined remains of the forge. The metal was sizzling, simmering with heat that began coursing through it in a mere moment, red-hot.

“So many of your people are dead... Your lands are a burning wasteland... And yet, you remain stubbornly condemning more and more! Like the fool you are.“

The stench of burning skin rose like steam in the air, pungent and sharp.

He shut his eyes and grit his teeth. It was hot inside, too hot.

Many questions came, but the answer to them had never been anything but silence.

 

The sun was setting somewhere beyond scraps of dark clouds and fumes that stretched their sooty fingers across the sky. He could see it. Its rays, like spears, shone on the wall opposite. This was a smaller premise than the forge in which he had been chained before, its walls far closer together, though his gaze, hazy as it had been, still regarded the high arches of ceiling overhead. Those, too, had been stained by smoke and tar, and now a dark, blotched grey instead of the pristine white of marble. There were a few high windows just under the ceiling.

No longer were the chains that wound around his body pinned to a high pillar and suspending him in an absurd position. It seemed that Sauron now found it sufficient to throw him on the bare ground… How ironic. Only a few decades ago - what was a mere blink of an eye in the life of an elf - he would have scattered rose petals under his feet with all those sweet words.

His brows furrowed at the thought.

Memories had no place here. Even thoughts of him had no place here. He was not a friend, not even close; he was a traitor, a deceiving serpent. It took so long for him to show his colors, but the proof was in every action.

He still considered himself unbroken, he still wasn’t yielding. The risk was too great; too much was at stake for him to succumb to venomous words, fire and knives. The rings were too precious. Their power was too great to be ever found within the reach of Sauron. He knew them too well, and already was his might more than enough of the threat. Especially Men… Could be easily swayed astray and corrupted…

The door creaked loudly. A great many thunderous footsteps could be easily heard approaching.

 

_A long time ago, he had been a warrior, clad in gleaming steel and mithril._

_Further still were the times when he had been a smith…_

The walls of the smithy were garishly stained by running rivers of blood. Some of them were very aged already, more brown than red that had left its mark on the marble; and some were so fresh the drops were still moving, extending their reach by every second. Between the floor and the ceiling, the stone had now become a witness, a proof, and a painting of violence.

He still had not spoken. The little that he had said under the weight of the blows of a mallet had been of no significance, and only served to rile the Maia’s anger further. His vague words had been the billows to stir the flames. He would not break, he swore that he would not.

His sight was fading, black at the edge and distorted even by the slightest of motions as an ironclad hand gripped him by the throat, a thumb forcing his jaw up when he was lifted into the air, feet dangling high above the ground. Burned, rent flesh, and the stench of fire, licking at skin, was in the air once again. Yet, his eyes were as steel, and he did not make a sound.

The orc that had been holding him ran the fire further up his side, scraping him against the ribs with a red-hot rod of iron. Its tip pierced skin, and a slightly different odor like smoke floated towards the ceiling; the smell of drying, burnt blood. But still he did not speak. Not a word.

A sharp sigh of frustration preceded a series of metallic crashes, signalling Sauron’s approach. The Maia was disappointed. Very disappointed. That much he could see. And somewhere very, very deep inside, it had pleased him to see those fiery eyes burning not with satisfaction, but with rage at his disobedience and lack of willingness to comply, to orders and to torment alike. He would never speak. He held all the answers to Gorthaur’s numerous question in his hand, and that hand was high above his captor’s head, out of his reach with all his secrets.

 

He no longer hoped that he would escape alive. When he had lost the battle, his fate was sealed, but there was a small thing he could yet do. The Three were away for safekeeping, and the sixteen lesser rings that he had forged with Annatar’s assistance and guidance were no longer in his possession, either; as soon as the first flame bit into his body, as soon as the mallet struck him for the first time, he was certain that he would not give their locations away. He would take that knowledge to his grave.

The tall figure approached, hand clenching around the self-same hammer that was once used to create works of beauty, but now served as a tool of torture, and no more, despoiled by dry blood that had coated the entirety of its silver head and sat in the crevices and nooks along the hilt.

“How many times do I need to ask? Tell me where you sent the rings.” On the surface, Sauron’s voice was smooth, but the nuances and spikes that lurked underneath the sheet of silk he would like to disguise it with were still audible.

Silence.

“Tell me where you sent them, and I will free you.” This time, the request was more urgent, and more tempting as well.

But Celebrimbor could see through those false promises. He would not be freed; he would be killed instead. Besides, even if he would be freed, he was already too wounded to live long within the ruined lands. It would amount to nothing.

“I already told you.” he spoke, in a hoarse, ragged voice.

“I sent them away. You will not lay your hands on them.”

The Maia’s eyes narrowed. With a flick of the hand, he instructed the orc to cast him back upon the earth, and so it was done. Once more, he saw little more than the hard rock underneath. Blood seeped through the scraps of once noble clothes through wounds that had opened again by the harsh action, soaking into hair and staining skin.

 

Sauron did not like repeating his questions for a stubborn elf. Already had he spent more than his fair share of time watching them drain his blood, set him on fire, and break him, and put a hand to the work himself, but his patience had its limits, too, and already was he teetering on their edge.

“I will not ask you twice.”

Tyelpe twitched a little as he felt the Maia’s foot jabbing into his side, hands already clenched into bloody fists and pushing him upwards to sit. His back arched, a protruding spine becoming the ridge that pulled his skin tight across his back, but he sat.

“And I will not talk.”

The air grew heavy.

“What did you say?” It was almost as if Sauron did not want to believe that the Noldo had actually spoken those words. It must have been a trick of the mind, surely… Surely he was not so foolish.

“I said I will not talk.” he spoke again, peering at the world through a curtain of long, stringy hair, matted with freshly spilled blood that, like ink, merely thicker, still flowed down its strands. And he meant every word.

 

With a flick of the hand, the Maia instructed the handler, one of the orcs that stood around like a silent, but greatly pleased audience, feasting on the theater of torment ahead of them, to take hold of the Elda again. He was gripped by the throat with a suffocating grip and drawn against the wall behind his back in a scraping motion, held above the beast’s head. Yet, he resisted; he found the hand under his jaw comfortably close to reach, and wrenched his head just far enough to sink his teeth into the dark flesh, spurting out black blood as his muscles clenched, staining his skin.

The orc roared, immediately dropping him again. His bite went deep.

Lying on his side, he coughed the blood and small remains of dirt and flesh out, spitting them all over the floor.

“What about it do you not understand? I will never talk.”

He took a deep, cracking breath, coming to sit, supported by his arms again, and ignored the pain of cracked bones and deep wounds. Shaking. But too proud to grovel at the feet of his captors.

“I will never tell you a single thing. You can kill me. But you will not get what you want.”

There was a long, loud, and simmering sigh, and the sound of footsteps coming closer still.

“You are quite the image of your sire, and his father before that. A stubborn fool.”

 

The mallet came crashing down. He fell to the floor again.

“You will talk.” said the Maia again, in a voice that echoed within the marble as more blood sprayed upon the walls.

“I will make you talk.”

 

A thousand fires.

A thousand swords.

A thousand hungry maws.

A thousand roaring voices.

A thousand silent glares.

 

Long hours had passed. The Sun made her journey across the sky numerous times, but the dark clouds shadowed her majesty, save for the brief moments of sunset and sunrise, when the windows of the smithy opened up before her rays, and let them pierce through, shining onto the opposite wall.

It was the only beautiful thing in a world of fire and torment.

For all else had been steel, flames, blood, and the faces of orcs. So many days had gone by, and he remained unyielding, but Sauron’s cruelty and wickedness had been greater than he suspected it to be. The mallet was truly only the beginning. He woved never to talk, but can one truly bear a burden like that?

With every passing day, there was less determination and more despair.

He did not know how much longer he will last, but he hoped that Gorthaur’s frustration will serve to his swift end, if nothing else. And that all the knowledge of the rings will see his lonely grave, along with himself. Even if it had to be a grave within this wasteland. And even if he had to be laid into it broken and flayed beyond recognition. Little else than that mattered.

He was waiting. For that grave.

 

A thousand screams.

A thousand questions.

A thousand secrets.

A thousand blows.

A thousand chain-links.

And only one great nothingness.

 

No longer could he wholly see what room he was in. One of his eyes was missing, a burnt hole in its place, and the other one’s sight was not sharp and bright enough to distinguish the structures of the walls. But it was dark there, quite dark indeed. Cold, and damp. A little like underground… But he was not underground. The sounds coming from the outside were too loud for this to be underground.

The fingers of his left hand, the one that had not been broken so badly as to lose all sense of touch, pressed against the rag that covered the hole of an eye-socket, scratching and rubbing against it to keep the pain at bay. It was too dark for his liking, and too cool.

He did not want to live. Not anymore.

This was a burden too great. The torment, the responsibility…

He merely wanted an ending, no matter how low.

No pride, no honor. All he wanted was an ending, to merely escape this pain, this ruin, the sight of so many dead because of his misdeeds and trust, placed in the wrong place. All he had ever wanted…

No, he wanted nothing anymore.

His back arched partially, chest heaving with small and shallow breaths like a bent and misshapen birdcage.

Tears.

They were hot when they flowed down his face and dripped through the floor, washing long river-beds through the smudges of dried blood.

 

There were few secrets he still had to keep within himself. Few secrets that remained within his hands, for he had not been strong enough to keep them all safe. Every memory of the last day had been a spear, driven into his flesh; no, in fact, it was far worse than that. There was no comparison to it. Nothing that was quite alike to the feeling that made his gut wrench and his heart ache, the sheer knowledge of the size and impact of his failure. But he could not… He could not have lasted any longer…

He gave the sixteen rings that he had made with Annatar’s assistance away. He spoke, caved in…

No…

The thought made him want to retch even more than the constant spikes of pain that shot through his ruined body with every moment. It was disgusting. Utterly disgusting.

And he wept.

He could not feel most of his legs; at some point, the mallet must have broken his back. But he wished that he could stand, in the desperation and delirium wishing that there was some way to right the wrongs already done. Albeit, his wishes had no solid ground, and no fulfillment, either; they were just that - wistful thoughts of a mind fallen prey to the ever-hungry ghosts of torment. They clawed at his conscience, or what was left of it, anyway… And he could recall things he did not even know he still remembered, surreally vibrant images painted in his vision, scattered shards that made no sense forming a distorted image.

He clawed at the ground, dragging himself forwards with a stifled howl of agony.

Despair.

In despair, even the proudest obeyed.

Why had it come so far?

And why was it not far enough yet?

 

He was within someone’s hard and harsh hands again. Handled… Dragged somewhere. He could not see.

He could not understand the words that cruel tongue spoke.

Too far on that road…

He could but weep.

 

_Father, are you still here?_

_You said you will always be there. For me. You said, I remember, though I was very young when you spoke those words._

_Are you still here?_

_Are you?_

_Are you still here?_

_I wish I was not._

_Please._

_All I want is an ending._

 

He could but weep, shedding endless, blood-stained tears. He could do nothing else, not when they forced more red-hot steel through his skin, not when bones cracked under the weight of that mallet. Not when they were willing to rend him into pieces and tear him apart. Never.

He merely wept, remembering what he could of better, brighter times, as if his own mind was doing its best to escape this prison of an existence. That ending he so yearned for was close; his body was too weak to even speak. Once his captors find out that he is no longer of any use, they will discard him like if he was nothing, nothing at all.

He kept weeping, head resting on his forearm, tears falling to the ground like rain, but found no fertile ground to seep into. Only blood and stone.

 

_Are you still here?_

_Father, are you? When I need you most…_

_Please._

 

It was sunrise.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, this was one bloody and confusing journey to the grave.


End file.
